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As UFC continues New York legislation push, White again harps on safety record

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NEW YORK CITY – As professional hockey attempts to address the serious health and safety issue of concussions in the rink, the UFC is highlighting the comparative safety of mixed martial arts.

The promotion's president said that mandatory medical suspensions are a key to limiting the amount of head trauma a fighter sustains during his professional career. So, too, is a rule set that prevents a fighter from taking undue punishment inside the cage.

"These guys don't take the damage that NFL players take, or boxers, or guys from the NHL," UFC president Dana White said during a press conference held today at New York City's Radio City Music Hall in support of UFC 128, which takes place Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

White's comments come amid increasing pro-hockey scrutiny following several high-profile incidents of direct contact to the head, as well as a new protocol designed to protect players who may have sustained concussions during play.

In the most flagrant example of the sport's possible danger, Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty was left with a fractured neck and severe concussion after Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara checked him into a glass partition during a game this past Tuesday at Montreal's Bell Centre. Chara escaped suspension by the NHL, but the Montreal police have opened an investigation into the matter.

In response to a firestorm of controversy over that hit and others, the NHL has instituted a new concussion protocol requiring any player suspected of the injury to sit out of the game for 15 minutes and be examined by a physician before being allowed to return.

Asked what the UFC is doing to prevent the types of head trauma that have become a hot topic among observers of such sports as hockey and football, White said athletic commissions are the first line of defense when it comes to keeping an athlete safe.

"Here's the reality: This is the most regulated sport in the world," White said. "When you have these guys talking about, 'Oh this shouldn't be in this state' or 'this is brutal' or this and that, the reality is when these guys fight, if they take any damage to the head ... they're put on a three-month medical suspension and cannot return until they're seen by a doctor."

The UFC also employs its own medical staff to examine fighters prior to a fight (beyond the clearance required by an athletic commission).

A 2008 article on MMA from the "British Journal of Sports Medicine" studied injury trends in a sample of 1,270 fights held from 2002-2007 in the state of Nevada and found severe concussions occurred in 3.3 percent of all matches. However, it recommended additional study of the sport to better understand injuries in MMA and how to prevent them.

The next line of defense against injuries is the small contingent of referees who can step in to save hurt fighters, White said.

Although somewhat counterintuitive to the casual observer, the executive said a fighter who is knocked down by a strike and swarmed by his opponent is safer than a participant in another contact sport who may be kept in the game long after he's been hurt.

"Because the guy has the ability to jump on top of him, the fight is usually stopped," White said. "These guys don't take the damage that NFL players take, or boxers, or guys from the NHL."

One medical expert told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that example holds true if a fighter is finished off with a submission hold. However, danger remains when striking is involved.

"If we're talking about jumping on somebody and wailing away at his head, obviously that's not (as safe)," said Dr. Robert Cantu, the co-founder of the Sports Legacy Institute, a group that studies brain trauma in sports.

But when it comes to the amount of time athletes get to recover from trauma, White said the built-in safeguards of commissions work in tandem with the UFC to prevent fighters from being seriously injured inside the cage.

"Guys in the NFL and NHL can't miss three months," he said. "If a guy's out three months for a concussion, there would be no football. There would be no NHL. That's the difference.

"This sport's a million times safer than both of them."

That's a feeling shared by supporters of the push to legalize MMA in the state of New York. The sport has been banned here since 1997, and the UFC is lobbying to reverse that.

"I grew up watching boxing on TV; I grew up watching WWF, then turned to WWE," said New York City Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera during today's press conference. "It motivated me to get into the gym; it motivated me to want to join martial arts. This is the impact that MMA and UFC has on our next generation of leadership, and that's why I think it's important that we bring it here to our great city and to Madison Square Garden where these fighters deserve the opportunity to fight.

"It's about time that government takes off the shackles, government opens up the doors, rolls out the red carpet, and allows the UFC into New York City."

For the latest on UFC 128, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.

Couldn't agree more. While I was reading this article all I could think of is Max Pacioretty, glad they even mentioned it.

Excuse me? That is an extremely uneducated statement you just made. Are you familiar with a man named Sidney Crosby?

He skated for the first time since that hit two days ago, that hit was 3 months ago.

That is one of MANY examples, concussions are NO joke. Please tell me one person that has gotten a concussion and came back to play just days later, it doesn't happen.

Didn't Crosby keep playing after the hit by Hedman in the game where he was diagnosed with a concussion? Which was three days after the hit by Steckel in the Winter Classic? And didn't he look pretty fazed by that hit, like at the end of the game, not realizing that he should have skated onto the ice when his goalie came off? It seems like there's a decent chance he suffered a concussion then and just lied about it.

Didn't Ian Laperriere play in the preseason, lying to the Flyers about how he felt from taking those pucks in the face last year? And despite the fact that that he never recovered from the last one he took in the playoffs, he did come back and play with it in the playoffs too.

Last year a poll conducted by the AP showed that almost 20% of the NFL players surveyed had hidden concussion symptoms from their team. Before last year (I believe) players could return to a game as long as they hadn't lost consciousness. It was only a month ago that they established a standardized test for trainers or doctors to use to determine if a player might have a concussion.

Aaron Rodgers missed one game after he suffered a concussion against Detroit, but he didn't miss one after the concussion against Washington, earlier in the year.

In the NBA this year, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute of Milwaukee didn't miss a single game after suffering a concussion. He played three days later.

Players get concussed and come back days later (or just never leave the game, because the concussions aren't officially diagnosed) much more frequently than what you're suggesting.

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Didn't Crosby keep playing after the hit by Hedman in the game where he was diagnosed with a concussion? Which was three days after the hit by Steckel in the Winter Classic? And didn't he look pretty fazed by that hit, like at the end of the game, not realizing that he should have skated onto the ice when his goalie came off? It seems like there's a decent chance he suffered a concussion then and just lied about it.

Didn't Ian Laperriere play in the preseason, lying to the Flyers about how he felt from taking those pucks in the face last year? And despite the fact that that he never recovered from the last one he took in the playoffs, he did come back and play with it in the playoffs too.

Last year a poll conducted by the AP showed that almost 20% of the NFL players surveyed had hidden concussion symptoms from their team. Before last year (I believe) players could return to a game as long as they hadn't lost consciousness. It was only a month ago that they established a standardized test for trainers or doctors to use to determine if a player might have a concussion.

Aaron Rodgers missed one game after he suffered a concussion against Detroit, but he didn't miss one after the concussion against Washington, earlier in the year.

In the NBA this year, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute of Milwaukee didn't miss a single game after suffering a concussion. He played three days later.

Players get concussed and come back days later (or just never leave the game, because the concussions aren't officially diagnosed) much more frequently than what you're suggesting.

Whats the common theme of what your stating? Either they were unaware of their injuries or they hid them from their team. In a professional fight BOTH fighters are checked for PCS and dilated pupils. I am sure a fighter would try to get away with it if they could but chances are they won't, especially with the athletic commissions checking up on fighters before, immediately after and shortly after a fight.

Whats the common theme of what your stating? Either they were unaware of their injuries or they hid them from their team. In a professional fight BOTH fighters are checked for PCS and dilated pupils. I am sure a fighter would try to get away with it if they could but chances are they won't, especially with the athletic commissions checking up on fighters before, immediately after and shortly after a fight.

So, isn't that the point of what Dana White is saying? The UFC is stricly regulated, something like that can't and doesn't happen while it happens often in other sports. That was his whole argument, you seemed to miss the point.

Whats the common theme of what your stating? Either they were unaware of their injuries or they hid them from their team. In a professional fight BOTH fighters are checked for PCS and dilated pupils. I am sure a fighter would try to get away with it if they could but chances are they won't, especially with the athletic commissions checking up on fighters before, immediately after and shortly after a fight.

So what? Iuanes said players get concussed, "shake it off," then come back for more and they totally do.

Players lying or staffs being unaware is a theme, but it's not common throughout all of the examples. And it doesn't disprove Iuanes' point that you strenuously disagreed with.

Three years ago, when he was at UCLA, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute sustained a concussion that kept him off the basketball court for eight days, until he completed a series of neurocognitive tests.

That's why the Bucks forward was so surprised when all he needed to return this season following a mild concussion was simply his word to the training staff.

"I didn't have to do any tests because we were on the road and doctors were here," Mbah a Moute said. "They just asked me how I was feeling, and I told them I was feeling better. They were like, 'You're fine."'

Mbah a Moute said he knocked heads with a Dallas defender on Jan. 1 and returned three days later, despite some soreness on his left side of his head. The experience has made him think there should be a league-wide policy to handle every concussion.

"There should be standards in the NBA. You need to do these tests and pass these tests before you can come back on the court. Bottom line. We definitely don't get as bad concussions as football and other sports, but a concussion is a concussion," Mbah a Moute said. "It's a serious injury and there should be tests."

Aaron Rogers passed his tests between the Washington and Miami games, but still, he was allowed to assume a position the NFL now calls defenseless seven days after a concussion.

Iuanes said players in contact sports take big hits, and come back for more the next week, or the next day.

You called that extremely uneducated, said it doesn't happen and asked for examples.

Those are two examples I remembered from just this year. They were diagnosed, and neither missed time. They didn't play the next day, but they did play the next game.

More examples of NFL players who didn't even miss one game after suffering a concussion and being diagnosed: Matt Moore, Marcus Trufant, Jason Witten, Willis McGahee, Tony Scheffler, Demaryius Thomas, Josh Cribbs, and Chris Cooley.

That seems like a lot, and it's only for the first six weeks of the season...

Do you want an example of a player suffering a concussion, being examined by the trainers and doctors, not lying to them and then returned to the game?

How about Kevin Kolb? First game of the year, gets sacked and concussed, looked at by medical staff, and comes in for the next series. Luckily, they had a three and out, he didn't get hit by Matthews again, and the medical staff realized what was wrong before the next series.

His teammate wasn't so lucky. Stewart Bradley was concussed a few plays after Kolb, and despite struggling to get up and stumbling like a drunken sailor in a hurricane, sat out just a couple plays and returned for the rest of the series. Unlike Kolb, he was playing linebacker, and kept making contact. After getting hit a few more times, the medical staff examined him again and realized he had amnesia.

Two players getting concussed and returning to play in the same game... They were both examined and neither of them lied. They were still put in tremendous danger (e.g. second impact syndrome) even if their team didn't mean to do it.

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I was (and still am) under the impression that he meant it as "Whats the big deal? Other sports shake it off why can't MMA Fighters" and if that is what he meant then I stick with my original statement.

I was (and still am) under the impression that he meant it as "Whats the big deal? Other sports shake it off why can't MMA Fighters" and if that is what he meant then I stick with my original statement.

Ah.

I thought (and still do) that he meant it was good that concussed MMA fighters weren't subjected to the same quick return to contact as players in other contact sports.

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Can't see why its such a big issue, can't see why they don't just say fcuk it to NY, they have enough scale over the world and the US to be able to forget about that one state, and its there loss really UFC events would bring revenue and sell out MSG arena which has to be good for them, the UFC would wait for them to come to them and say "hey you know what we changed our minds MMA is now legal in NY"